Angel & Faith

DH: What’s your favorite part of working in comics as an art medium?

Rebekah Isaacs: The kind of independence and influence over the story that you get as a single person. In other mediums, such as animation or video-game design, most artists work as a team and will probably only be solely responsible for a small portion of the final product. As an artist on a comic book, I get to have a hand in almost everything. Obviously I have to stay true to the script, and since I’m a lousy writer myself I have no problem with that whatsoever. But within that, the artist gets so much freedom to create the world around the story. And because the art is the medium through which the reader receives the story, it comes with a lot of responsibility to get everything right. But it’s really rewarding at the end of the day. Also, I get to work in pajamas.

DH: Did you meet any big challenges when jumping into work on Angel & Faith?

RI: The biggest challenge was likenesses. It’s not something that most superhero artists will ever have to worry about, and I’d had very little experience in having to draw them. When I first got the invitation to try out for the Buffyverse, I spent about an hour on every headshot and hated each and every one of them. That went on for about a week and I was this close to telling Sierra I just wasn’t cut out for it, thanks all the same. But my friends encouraged me to keep pushing on and I’m glad I took their advice. It took a few more weeks but gradually I started to see improvement, and even though I’m still getting better with them every day and am far from perfect, I no longer feel like throwing myself out a window every time I draw a likeness.

DH: What excites you most about working on the Angel & Faith comics series?

RI: Mostly, working on characters that I really love and get all squeal-y and teary eyed over—some days I look at what I drew and it feels like I should be putting heart stickers all over it and pasting it in my diary, not sending it to my editor, who will then publish it for all the world to see. But I’m glad everyone does get to see it because the other part of what makes working on this series so awesome is how much the fans really, truly care about what’s going to happen in it. It is really overwhelming in a wonderful way to be working on something that really means something very personal to people.

DH: If you were free to work on your own original comic, what would it be about?

RI: Lately I’ve been mulling over an idea about a group of upstanding, hard-working but totally broke New Yorkers who organize a petty-crime ring in hopes that it will drive people out and rents down. Obviously everything will go horribly awry. I’d like it to be a dark comedy. Can you tell I’m bitter about my rent? Don’t worry about me turning to a life of crime, though; at the end of the year I’m doing the next best thing—moving to Florida!

DH: If you had a superpower, what would it be?

RI: Baconation. Turn anything into bacon.

And thank you, good reader, for reading. We’ll be back soon with another Better Know an Artist series. In the mean time you can check out our other interviews with: Cole Haddon,Carla Speed McNeil, Zack Whedon, and Jane Espenson in our Facebook page notes section. If you have any questions you’d like to see answered please leave them in the comments below.